Contracted: corporate wife

by Hart, Jessica

  'Why did you stay with him for so long?' demanded Patrick, angry for some reason.

  'Because of the children. And because I loved him.'

  'Are you still in love with him?'

  Lou glanced at him, surprised at the harshness in his

  voice. Patrick was surprised by it too. He hadn't meant to ask her that, but the question was out before he could stop it.

  'I guess that isn't my business either,' he said.

  Did she still love Lawrie? Lou twisted her coffee-cup in its saucer.

  'I think part of me will always love him,' she said slowly. 'I can't imagine ever loving anyone else that deeply, and I don't want to. Lawrie hurt me so much in the end. I couldn't go through that again. I just couldn't,' she said. Til never fall in love again. Not like that.'

  She risked another glance at Patrick. He was looking a bit grim. Probably dreading an outburst of emotion.

  That's the only reason I could think about marrying you,' she told him. 'Knowing that you wouldn't expect me to love you, or even want me to.'

  'No.' Patrick could hear the edge of doubt in his own voice, and he frowned. Where had that come from? 'No, I wouldn't,' he said more firmly. A bit too firmly, in fact. Almost as if he were protesting too much.

  Fortunately Lou didn't seem to notice. 'And I wouldn't expect you to be faithful,' she said. 'I know you'd have other relationships, and I would accept that, of course.' She hesitated a little. 'The only thing is that I wouldn't want the children exposed to that fact. All I'd ask is that you were as discreet as you could be, and that you didn't bring any girlfriends back to the house if we were there.'

  When she put it like that, the idea of carrying on a relationship when he was married to her sounded degrading somehow. Patrick shifted uncomfortably. Maybe it was a bit degrading. He hadn't really thought about how it would work in practice. He had just been determined to avoid emotional entanglements and keep all his options open. Wasn't that the whole point of marrying Lou?

  But he certainly didn't want to hurt or humiliate her. How could she think that he would be that crass?

  'I don't have a problem with that,' he said gruffly. 'I won't bring anyone back, I promise.'

  'It looks like you might be able to have that fantasy of yours after all, then,' said Lou.

  'Does this mean you're thinking about marrying me after all?'

  She bit her lip. 'If you still want to.'

  'Hey, you've just offered me my fantasy. How could I not want to?'

  'Well, when you put it like that...' Lou tried to smile, but it didn't quite come off.

  'The point is, do you want to?' said Patrick.

  'I'm just worried about Grace and Tom. You were pretty clear that you weren't interested in being a stepfather, and I wouldn't be able to go through with it if I thought that you would resent them.'

  'I wouldn't resent them,' said Patrick. 'I'd never thought about having kids around, that's all. But now that I've met them, I feel different. I didn't think I'd like them, to be honest, but I do.'

  'You're not just saying that because Tom admired your car?'

  He half smiled. 'No, it's not that.' He thought about it for a bit. 'I suppose they were just complications before, but now they're individuals. I can see now how important they are to you. I think I understand more why you'd be prepared to do this.'

  They listened for a moment to the sound of Grace and Tom in the pool. There seemed to be a lot of shouting and splashing going on, thought Lou. They were obviously having a great time. When they had to entertain themselves and forgot to fight, the two of them got on very well.

  'I don't suppose I would be a very touchy-feely stepfather,' Patrick said, 'but I would do my best. You want Grace to go skiing, don't you?'

  'Yes,' said Lou in a low voice.

  'She can go if you marry me. I can take Tom snow-boarding if he wants to have a go at that. You can give them all the opportunities you want.' He paused. 'You could have your fantasy too, Lou. You wouldn't have to worry about things on your own any more. You'd have someone to talk to at the end of the day. You'd even have someone to hold you, if that was what you needed.'

  Lou had been listening quietly, but her eyes jerked to his at that.

  'As a friend,' Patrick clarified quickly. 'You've been frank about how you're not going to love me. Well, I won't love you either. We won't complicate things with sex.'

  And it would be a complication, he thought. A quite unnecessary one too. Much better to put the whole idea out of his mind completely.

  'We'd be partners,' he assured her. 'Friends rather than man and wife in the usual sense. We've got a chance here to make both our fantasies come true, Lou,' he said gently.

  There was a pause. Lou watched a bee zooming over the thyme and thought about what Patrick had said. It all seemed to make such perfect sense when he talked like that. Why was she hesitating? Surely it couldn't be the way he had assured her that he wouldn't love her?

  'Lou, I made a real mess of this before,' said Patrick after a while. 'Can I ask you again now?'

  She nodded, her mind made up. 'Yes, ask me again.'

  'Will you marry me, Lou?'

  Lou took a breath and looked straight into his grey-green eyes. 'Yes,' she said. T will.'

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  There was an awkward pause as they looked at each other uncertainly. If they were a real couple, they would fall into each other's arms at this point, but clearly a passionate kiss wasn't appropriate in their case.

  'We could shake hands on the deal,' Patrick suggested, making a joke of it. 'But it does seem a bit businesslike. I think we should kiss, don't you?'

  Lou's heart did an alarming somersault at the very thought. 'Kiss?' she echoed, horrified at how squeaky her voice sounded.

  s 'We may not be going to be lovers, but I hope we can be friends,' he said.

  Right. A kiss between friends. That was all he meant.

  Right. Calm down, Lou told her still-stuttering heart and firmly squashed a sneaky and quite irrational sense of disappointment. Friends, that was fine. She could do friends. She had been very clear that that was all she wanted, and she was glad that Patrick had got the message.

  Very glad. Of course.

  She cleared her throat to get rid of that ridiculous squeak-iness. 'Sounds good to me,' she said, super casual.

  'Good,' said Patrick, and leant across the table to kiss her on the cheek.

  Lou had a dizzying sense of his nearness, and a sudden terrifying desire to turn her head and kiss him back, but it was over in a moment, and he was sitting back with a smile.

  'Good,' he said again, looking across the table at Lou, and his smile widened. She looked somehow right, sitting

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  there in his garden. He liked the idea that there would be other days when he would come home and find her here. The girls might come and go, but Lou would always be there. It was a good thought, and Patrick beamed with satisfaction. Everything was working out perfectly. 'Let's get married soon,' he said.

  Lou swallowed nervously and decided to take the plunge. 'I want to talk to you both,' she said as she ladled baked beans onto toast. They had had such a good lunch that she thought she could get away with a Sunday-night snack.

  'Baked beans? Great!' Tom sat up in his chair. 'My favourite,' he said excitedly, and Lou smiled in spite of her nerves. There had to be something to be said for a child whose tastes ranged from a car that even second-hand cost as much as a house to beans on toast.

  T hate beans,' said Grace, but she picked up her knife and fork anyway.

  'There's something I want to say,' Lou began again as they started eating.

  She couldn't face anything herself. She was too churned up at the decision she had made, and anxious about how the children would react.

  Not to mention appalled at how shaky a mere kiss on the cheek had made her feel.

  Patrick had suggested that they tell the children when they finally dragged th
em out of the pool, but Lou had wanted to do it on her own. So he had driven them home instead, putting the seal on Tom's day by letting him sit in the front passenger seat and play with all the buttons.

  'Dad's got a sports car too,' he told Patrick. 'But it's not as good as this.'

  The two of them talked cars while Lou and Grace were squeezed into the back seat. Sitting behind Tom, Lou found

  her eyes resting on Patrick's profile, on the strong neck and the line of his jaw and the sudden gleam of his smile that made her heart clench uncomfortably.

  She had said that she would marry him.

  She was going to marry him.

  What had she let herself in for?

  Panic, elation, terror and a weird kind of excitement churned around inside her at the thought, and she hardly noticed the drive across London until Patrick drew up outside the flat. Tom must have directed him.

  It seemed unlikely that the neighbourhood had ever seen a car like this. 'I'd ask you up, but I don't think you should leave the car here,' Lou said nervously.

  Patrick merely laughed. Til see you tomorrow,' he said, and then he drove back to his fabulous house and his garden and his pool and Lou was left to make beans on toast.

  'Earth to Planet Lou!' Grace waved a hand in front of her face. 'Wake up, Mum! You're weirding us out here.'

  Weirding them out? Where did they get these expressions?

  'Sorry.' Lou pulled herself together. 'Yes. So.' She cleared her throat. 'Um...did you enjoy today?'

  'It was cool,' said Tom. 'I can't believe he's got a Porsche 911! I liked the pool too.'

  'Yeah, the pool was great,' said Grace.

  'And did you see that television?' Tom put in, and launched into a description of all its technical features before Lou cut him off.

  'Forget about his things,' she said sharply. 'What about Patrick? Did you like him?'

  Tom offered the ultimate accolade. 'He was really cool.'

  Typically, Grace was less enthusiastic. 'He was OK,' she offered grudgingly. 'At least he didn't talk to us like we were children.'

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  Instead of the grown-ups they were at fourteen and eleven. Lucky Patrick had avoided that elementary error.

  Still, he hadn't done badly to merit an OK. That was high praise from Grace.

  'Well, I'm glad you liked him,' said Lou, squaring up to the challenge at last. 'That's what I want to talk to you about, actually. The thing is, Patrick and I are thinking of getting married.'

  Lou often read about children wisely picking up on adult signals, but if she had hoped for a cosy admission from either of them that they had secretly suspected that Patrick was madly in love with her, she was due for a disappointment. Grace and Tom were dumbfounded.

  They stared at her, their beans forgotten. 'You're kidding!'

  'Er...no, I'm not, actually.'

  'You mean Patrick's in love with youT There was no mistaking the incredulity in Grace's voice. Lou couldn't blame her.

  'No,' she said. She wanted to be honest with them. They deserved that at least. 'No, he isn't. And I'm not in love with him.'

  At least she hoped she wasn't. She had certainly reacted very strangely to a little peck on the cheek. It might be a smidgeon of lust, perhaps, but love? No. She wasn't falling in love again. She had told Patrick that.

  Lou paused, wondering how best to explain. 'Patrick and I aren't in love with each other, but we are friends, and we respect each other, and those things mean a good deal in a marriage. Ideally, we would love each other as well, but sometimes two out of three is good enough. I think we can have a strong, honest relationship.'

  She was just confusing them, Lou could see. 'Look, if you don't like the idea, I won't marry him,' she tried to reassure them. 'Patrick knows that. The important thing is

  that the three of us are a family. We'd still be a family if I married Patrick, though. He'd just be there as well.'

  'Would we still see Dad?' asked Tom anxiously.

  'Of course you would. Patrick wouldn't try and be your father. He knows you've got your own dad. And it's not as if everything would change. You'd still go to the same school. We just wouldn't live here any more.'

  'You mean we'd live in that house with a pool all the timeT Tom's eyes were huge.

  'Well, yes, probably.'

  Grace sat up straighter. 'Could I have my own room?'

  'Yes, you could.'

  'And go on that skiing trip?'

  'Yes,' said Lou. 'You can go skiing.'

  Grace looked at her mother for a long moment, and then she smiled. 'Thanks, Mum,' she said, and for some reason Lou felt tears prick her eyes.

  'I know it will mean a big change for both of you,' she said, blinking them back fiercely. 'But nothing's going to change about us, I promise you. I know I've rather sprung this on you, and it may take you a bit of time to get used to the idea, but—'

  'It's cool, Mum,' Tom interrupted her kindly. T don't want to be mean, but Patrick's house is a lot nicer than this. Living there will be better than living here, won't it?'

  Lou looked around the poky kitchen, where the three of them were squeezed around the table. Upstairs, feet clomped across the ceiling, and the television blared from next door. Whenever she wondered if she'd made the right decision, she needed to remember this.

  'Yes,' she said. 'It will'

  Lou stood on top of the hill and lifted her face to the wind. It was the end of July, mid-summer, but here high in the

  Yorkshire Dales there was little sign of it. Grey clouds scudded across the sky, bringing the occasional splatter of rain, and the wind had a distinct chill to it.

  Patrick poured coffee into the lid of a flask and handed it to her. Taking it, Lou sat next to him on a rocky outcrop and cradled the mug between her hands as she gazed down at the village below. She could see the river, the huddle of grey stone cottages around the sturdy church. Across the valley, half hidden in trees, was the hotel where they would be married the next day.

  It had been a busy couple of months. Lou had thought it would be too difficult to carry on working for Patrick once they were married, so she had recruited a new PA for him and handed the office over in perfect order, not without a pang or two. She had plans to do a garden design course eventually, but it was sad leaving behind the people at Schola Systems who had been friends and colleagues for so long.

  She had fewer regrets about leaving the flat. It was empty now, their things packed up and waiting for them in Chelsea. They were to move in with Patrick after the wedding, and life for all of them would change completely.

  Patrick was obviously thinking about the future too. 'I can't believe we're actually going through with it,' he said, following her gaze to the hotel.

  'It's not too late to change your mind,' she pointed out.

  'What, and disappoint Fenny? I couldn't do it,' he said. 'She told me that she'd been hoping for years that you would find someone like me to marry!'

  Lou had been relieved and more than a little surprised at her aunt's ready acceptance of Patrick. She wouldn't have thought that they would get on at all.

  'I hope you appreciate what an honour that is,' she told

  him, putting down her coffee to unwrap the packet of sandwiches Fenny had made for them that morning before ordering them out of the house. 'Fenny's like Grace. She doesn't give her approval easily.

  'She never had any time for Lawrie,' Lou remembered, offering the sandwiches to Patrick. 'She told me that he had a weak chin and couldn't be trusted, and Lawrie thought that she was a rude and eccentric old woman. I used to have to come up to see her by myself. He flatly refused to come, and Fenny probably wouldn't have had him in the house anyway.'

  Not wanting to have any secrets from her aunt, she had told Fenny the truth about her marriage to Patrick. She had expected her to be shocked and disapproving, but Fenny had merely listened carefully and nodded.

  'Very sensible, dear,' was all she had said. 'You can get mar
ried from here as soon as the children break up for their summer holidays.'

  Patrick brushed breadcrumbs from his trousers. 'Do you want to change your mind?'-he asked carefully. 'I wouldn't blame you after being cornered by my mother last night.'

  The two families had met for a pre-wedding party at the hotel, which had been virtually taken over by Patrick's sisters and their offspring. Grace and Tom had slotted effortlessly into the big group of nieces and nephews, one of whom had discovered the pool table. Lou had hardly seen them all evening.

  She had liked Patrick's mother and sisters a lot. They were all down-to-earth and had teased Patrick mercilessly, unimpressed by his wealth.

  'What on earth were the two of you talking about for so long?' he asked, taking another sandwich.

  'You, of course,' said Lou. The wind was whipping her

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  dark hair around her face and she tried to hold it back with one hand while she ate her sandwich.

  'I'd given up hope that Patrick would ever marry again,' Kate Fair told Lou when they found themselves on their own. The silly boy has been running around with quite unsuitable girls for far too long. I can't tell you how pleased I am that he's come to his senses at last and found himself a real woman!'

  Lou couldn't help being amused at hearing Patrick roundly described by his mother as a 'silly boy', but she felt a little uncomfortable about the warm welcome she had received from his family. He obviously hadn't told his family the whole truth about their marriage.

  'It's a shame that his father died when he did,' Kate was saying. 'Patrick was only fifteen, and I often think that he grew up too fast after that. And then there was Catriona. She was a nice enough girl,' she said fairly, 'but all wrong for Patrick. That marriage was never going to last. The divorce was supposedly amicable, but I know Patrick was much more hurt about it all than he wanted to admit.

  'He threw himself into his work after that, and I think he made too much money too soon. That playboy lifestyle wasn't what he needed.' Kate shook her smartly coiffed grey head. 'He built up this image of Mr I-Don't-Care, but of course what he was afraid of was caring too much.'